SPC and Global Fund to continue working together

The director general of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community, Dr Jimmie Rodgers, says fears for the health of patients on drugs programmes led to a transitional arrangement with the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

Support was about to end but the Fund has agreed to provide interim funding of five million US dollars through to the end of 2015.

The SPC will administer the fund but is still developing a proposal on just how that will be applied.

Dr Rodgers says there will be proposals for more substantial funding but the interim support was vital.

"There was concern that if funding should come to an end this year and there was no transition mechanism then people who were actually on treatment with anti retro-viral drugs may actually suffer, so this transitional funding ensures that, at least for the next two years, they will continue to receive treatment."